INDIANAPOLIS — As Scott Dixon’s car twisted through the air, 20 feet above the track, spitting fire and shattering into hundreds of pieces, all Robbie Fast could do was look on in horror.

Dixon’s spotter for the past nine years, Fast has seen all kinds of on-track disasters, but what he witnessed in May’s Indianapolis 500 still makes him wince.

“Indy scared me to death,” Fast said.

From Fast’s perspective — the spotter stand in Turn 1 — Dixon had two choices after Jay Howard lost control of his car and collided with the wall: Move to the high line and risk running straight into Howard or stay low and hope Howard doesn’t bounce off the wall and across the track.

Dixon, who had less than a second to decide, stayed low and it could have cost him his life.

But Fast said Dixon made the right call.

“Earlier in the month, the No. 2 car (Josef Newgarden) did the same thing, and he stayed back up to the wall,” Fast explains. “So when Howard hit the wall, it’s one of those crashes where you think, ‘OK, it’s going to come off and go back up.’ So you don’t say ‘Go to the top.’ ”

Truth be told, you don’t say much at all. In the split-second before Howard came careening off the wall in front of Dixon, there was no time for Fast to relay instructions. There was nothing he could do but try in vain to warn Dixon of the violence to come.

“Up top! Up top! Right there! On the top!” Fast pleaded over the radio. Then silence.

“Oooooh. Jesus.”

Fast has become so adept at his craft in his more than a decade atop a spotters’ perch, that he’s rarely lacking for work. The Chip Ganassi Racing spotter estimates he’ll work 36 events this season, including Indy cars, stock cars and sports cars.

With some embarrassment, Fast concedes he has a natural gift for the job — he’s calm under pressure and can process a lot of information quickly — but he credits his success in this niche profession to his hard work and passion.

It was mostly baptism by fire when he was first thrown atop a spotters’ stand about 15 years ago. There, Fast quickly realized that while he loved the job, he had a lot to learn. He began asking more seasoned spotters for tips and listening to other spotters during races he wasn’t working to learn how to relay information more quickly and clearly.

“It’s like watching tape for a football player,” Fast said. “It’s how we can get better.”

Oval races like those at Indianapolis, Pocono and the one this weekend at Gateway Motorsports Park are what Fast and other spotters live for.

On road and street courses, it’s difficult for spotters to see as much of the track as they can at ovals, so their jobs are limited to a turn here or there. However, from atop their perches on ovals, the “best seats in the house,” they can usually see everything.

Their job is to keep the driver apprised of everything going on around them and keep them out of danger. Is there an accident ahead? How big is the gap between cars? Who’s sneaking up to make a pass?

While facts like these are important, the foundation of the relationship between a driver and his spotter is built on one thing: trust.

“I trust my spotters 100 percent,” 20-year IndyCar veteran Tony Kanaan said. “The closest relationship a driver can have apart from engineer is with the spotter. You have to trust him.

“If he says I’m clear going down, them I’m going down. And if it’s not clear, that’s a problem. I think it’s the second-most stressful job in racing apart from driver. … They are making decisions for us, and things happen quickly at 220 miles per hour.”

Of course, communication is the other major challenge of spotting.

Indy cars can travel the length of a football field in a second, so spotters have to see things before they happen and quickly — like auctioneer quickly — spit out the information to the driver. A split-second late, and the results could be disastrous.

“You are so focused on what’s happening when you’re doing 220,” IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe said. “You’re looking so far in front of you to see what’s coming and having someone that’s looking beside and behind you paint that picture for you, it’s invaluable.”

Painting that picture is an art form in and of itself. No one driver is the same, so the communication is different for each.

Take Chip Ganassi Racing spotter Jason Reiner and his driver, Max Chilton. Reiner is a fast-talking New Yorker. Chilton grew up in Surrey, a county south of London.

“English versus English are two different languages,” Reiner said with a laugh before explaining that there is a significant difference in the racing terminology used in Europe and the United States. “Max and I had to go through that a little bit the first few times he was on the track with me.”

The other part of the communication equation is, how much is too much? While it is vitally important for spotters to relay key information to their drivers, sometimes drivers just want them to, as Kanaan puts it, “Shut up so I can focus.” It’s a delicate balance spotters must learn for each new driver.

Drivers are picky about what they want to hear, and their wants can be different.

Here’s what Kanaan has to say about hearing from his spotter, Bruce Kempton: “Usually, I like them to be more quiet and let me do my thing. I have control of things. You can’t rely on them 100 percent.”

But Hinchcliffe works differently with his spotter, Bob Perona: “Knowledge is power. The more information you have, the better. If you’re able to process it while you’re out there, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Honestly, the guys I know that tell their spotters to shut up and do the bare minimum are the guys I sometimes am terrified to be around at (tracks like Pocono).”

Big difference. And it’s up to spotters like Fast, Reiner, Kempton and Perona to figure out which driver wants what.

Fast has been with Dixon for almost a decade, so he knows exactly what the four-time champion needs to hear.

Reiner, though, has only been with Chilton since the beginning of the season, so he’s still developing that relationship. It will come, Reiner said, but it will take time and practice.

Getting a bird’s-eye view of your friend catapulting through the air and narrowly cheating death is definitely a downside of being a spotter, Fast said. But beyond that, there aren’t many.

He loves his job, how involved he is in the outcome of a race, how competitive it is, how good it feels to win.

For Reiner, it’s about being a part of the sport he loves. Not everyone can be a driver, owner or even an engineer, Reiner said.

“I’ve never been mechanical,” Reiner said. “A lot of these guys grew in the sport, watching their parents turn wrenches on a car. Not me. I didn’t come from that side. I kind (of) got thrown into it. I was a New Yorker who talked fast and didn’t have a southern drawl, so it allowed me to (be) able to communicate.

“It’s the way that I can help out. I try to stay calm and collected and help the team win, and that’s really what drives me to do it.”

Ayello writes for the Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network.